The conventional rack for presenting newspapers for sale to the public comprises an open box which is structured in metal wires or bars. The wires are welded together to form sides, a back, and a floor or shelf. The box is open at the front and top.
The conventional wire frame rack has a number of shortcomings:
The wire frame rack looks cheap. As a result, at least to some extent, the customer looks on the product sold from the rack, i.e. the newspaper, as being not worth the effort of proper presentation.
The wire frame rack is flimsy. Usually the wire frame rack is low on the ground, so that the customer has to stoop to pick up the newspaper; but if the rack were higher off the ground, the rack would be even more flimsy.
Even when the rack is only of a low height, the rack can hardly survive the normal abuse, such as accidental kicks and the like, which any article in a public place is bound to receive.
Members of the public are generally very casual in their approach to the task of reaching into the rack to pick up a newspaper, and so any sharp edges (to which wires of course are prone) can be quite dangerous.
Because the wires do not stand out visually, it is common for persons to rap their fingers accidentally on the wire frame as they reach in, simply because the casual eye does not pick up the presence of the wires.
The wire frame rack is awkward for the vendor to assemble and to move about. Often, the wire rack has to be screwed to a wall to give it the rigidity it needs to withstand abuse, which means the vendor is inhibited as to where he can place the rack.
The conventional wire frame rack often has two or more shelves, but has no provision for adjusting the heights of the shelves.
In short, the wire frame rack not only looks cheap and unsubstantial, but the wire frame rack is structurally unsuited to the task of supporting newspapers for presentation for sale.
The invention is aimed at providing a rack for presenting newspapers for sale, in which the above disadvantages are alleviated.
Another type of rack which has been in public use is the type in which the rack is made all of plastic. The conventional type of plastic rack comprises a moulding which includes a shelf or table-top on which the newspapers are supported. The designer of the rack must ensure that the rack has sufficient rigidity to withstand the normal abuse as received by any piece of equipment in a public place; also, the rack must be tall enough to raise the newspapers a good distance off the floor. The taller the rack, the more chunky its structure has to be in order for the rack to have the desired degree of rigidity. It has generally been perceived that for a rack to be properly rigid, the rack has to be so chunky that the structure appears clumsy, and so the need for rigidity largely dominates the other aspects of the design of the rack. Whereas the wire frame rack lacks visual appeal because it is so flimsy, the plastic rack lacks visual appeal because it is so chunky.
Given the dimensions that a newspaper rack has to have, and the rigidity it has to have, both the wire frame construction and the all-plastic construction have the wrong characteristics of bulk-to-rigidity, at least from the visual standpoint: the wire frame does not look substantial enough, whereas the plastic construction looks too cumbersome.
The invention is aimed at providing a rack which presents the newspapers at a good height from the ground, and yet which has the rigidity and robustness needed for public usage. The invention is also aimed at providing a rack that can be visually appealing, in that the required rigidity is achieved in a structure which is also neat and elegant.